


Two Old Soldiers

by gaslightgallows (hearts_blood)



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode Tag, F/M, Late Night Conversations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-23
Updated: 2015-07-23
Packaged: 2018-04-10 18:35:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4402805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hearts_blood/pseuds/gaslightgallows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack has more things to say to Phryne. Takes place just after the end of 2x12 "Unnatural Habits".</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Old Soldiers

**Author's Note:**

> I hate like this title, descriptive as it is. Apparently I'm far better at coming up with titles for other people's stories than for my own. ;P

_Hopefully,_ Phryne thought, her sappy grin fading into exhaustion as she closed the door behind Detective Inspector Robinson and crept upstairs to bed, _that little red goblin won’t keep the entire house up all night._

It was a very unfair thought, all things considered. During daylight hours, she rather liked other people’s babies, so long as they were safely tucked away in prams on the opposite side of the street. But at night, after several very long and emotionally taxing days, she was not inclined to be charitable. Especially not after Jack...

“Another time, Phryne,” she sighed, leaning her head on the wall of her bedroom. She didn’t bother to turn on the light. There was no need to; in all the excitement of the day, both Dot and Mr. Butler had understandably forgotten to draw the curtains in their employer's bedroom, and the moon above and the street lamps below gave Phryne ample illumination for her purposes. She let her robe fall to the floor, and all but collapsed onto her bed's purple and gold satin coverlet. The pillows were crisp and cool, scented with lavender. A hint of something warm and spicy seeming to linger in her nostrils. _Jack’s cologne,_ her mind told her, and she couldn't help but smile. Perhaps tomorrow...

There was a rustling in the garden below. The wind, no doubt. She could hear the windows of the neighbor’s attic rattling slightly in their casements. Or perhaps a night bird escaping from a hungry fox. _I think I shall hold all the escaping birds in the world very dear in my thoughts tonight,_ Phryne mused, turning over to wriggle beneath her covers.

An unfamiliar shadow shining through the window and into her dressing table mirror caught her attention, and she froze. That had not been any innocent rustling of the wind; someone had climbed, silently and swiftly, up the back stairs of the house, and was now standing on the balcony that wrapped round the first floor.

Her skin prickling in mingled excitement and irritation, Phryne slid carefully out of sight of the window and off the bed, so that it was between her and her unexpected guest. She crept across the floor to the large bureau beside the window, still hidden, as the figure gently lifted the window. It was a man; she could see the shape of his hat in his shadow.

Her fingers sought and found a heavy marble vase on the bureau. The man slipped into her bedroom with the grace of a tomcat, and closed the window as noiselessly as he had opened it. Phryne had to admire his finesse, even as she raised the vase over her head and prepared to brain him with it.

And she would have, too, if the familiar scent of bay rum had not, at that precise moment, wafted to her nose. “It’s not like you, Jack,” she said softly, “to make such unorthodox entrances.”

“No,” said the inspector, sounding only the tiniest bit embarrassed that he had been surprised, “that’s rather more your stock in trade, Miss Fisher.”

Phryne replaced the vase on the bureau, closed the curtains properly, and switched on the little lamp on her dressing table. Jack blinked rapidly, and then raised an eyebrow. “I would have thought a pistol would be more appropriate,” he said, eyeing the green marble vase dubiously.

“What, and wake up the whole household? There's a baby downstairs, you know.” Phryne’s trademark wit was subdued and sleepy, but even in her concern, she couldn't hide that she was glad to see him. “I thought you’d gone home.”

Jack dropped his hat onto the table. “I couldn’t.” The small yellow lamp hollowed his lean face even further, making deep caverns of his eyes. “I realized... there were still things I needed to talk to you about. So I parked the car in a side street and crept up the outside stairs.”

She smiled in spite of her exhaustion, which suddenly didn't seem nearly as overpowering as it had only a few minutes before. “You could’ve just knocked on the front door again.”

“What, and wake the baby? And your aunt?” A little smile tugged at his lips but it faded quickly. “I’m not getting any sleep tonight anyhow and... I’d rather suffer insomnia in understanding company.”

Phryne considered him for a moment or two. “Make yourself comfortable, Jack,” she said, touching his arm lightly. “I’ll fix you a drink. And out of my private stash, no less.” She knelt to open the bottom drawer of the bureau and held up a bottle of Scotch. “There’s the glass on the bedside table, but otherwise, we’ll have to make do.”

“I think I can manage.” Jack poured and handed her the glass, then took a swig straight from the bottle and swallowed it down slowly.

Phryne sipped her whiskey, and waited.

“Rosie... seems to think you’re a terrible influence on me,” he said.

It wasn’t the opening Phryne had expected, but she played along. “Yes, that was the impression that I got, the last time we spoke.” She shivered in her thin satin slip, and went to fetch her black embroidered robe from where she had left it, puddled on the floor.

Jack's long, nimble hands swirled the whiskey gently in its bottle, and then he lowered himself onto the dressing table chair. “She’s wrong, of course. You’re one of the best things that’s ever happened to me.”

Phryne sashed her robe and resumed her spot on the bed, folding her legs demurely beneath her. Now was not the time to tease Jack with visions of unknown lands. “That’s kind of you to say.”

“It’s the truth. And I don’t just mean professionally.”

“Professionally, I’m probably the _worst_ thing that’s ever happened to you,” Phryne snorted. “Come on, Jack, how many times have you almost lost your job since I descended on Melbourne?”

“Oh, not as many times as you might think.” He smiled, not the quick wide smile of official politeness that seemed to stretch his face and his patience to the breaking point, but the slow, nearly invisible tilt of lips and darkening of gaze that Phryne had come to know and to treasure. “You're not _that_ much of a nuisance, Miss Fisher.”

“Damn. I shall just have to try harder.” She held out her hand for the bottle.

Jack gave it. “‘Try harder.’ That’s what I kept telling myself, after I got back from France. ‘I have to try harder, to get over the things I saw, the things I did, and be the man I used to be. Be the man Rosie married.’ That’s what she expected would happen.” He shrugged out of his jacket, loosened his tie. The scent of his cologne on the air grew stronger. “The man I was... do you know, Phryne, I used to be a lot like Sidney Fletcher.”

“...I find that _very_ hard to imagine, Inspector.”

“I mean, I was happy. Unthinkingly happy. I smiled a lot. Never had a reason, never needed one. Just being alive seemed like it was enough. Rosie and I used to go everywhere together, when we were courting. We’d go out to the pier and watch the boats coming in, and dream big dreams about what our life would be like, once I got promoted. That’s what we were waiting for, for me to make Sergeant. Then we were going to get married. Her father was going to give us a house as a wedding present and we would have baskets of kids, and life would be glorious.”

Phryne knew before he said it. “And then the War.”

“You must've heard this same story a hundred times before,” Jack said softly.

“I have, yes.” She uncurled herself and leaned forward to touch his face. “And I’ve lived it.”

He frowned. “You? Were in France?”

“For almost the entire duration, either as a nurse or an ambulance driver.”

She waited for him to quirk his eyebrows, anticipated him commenting that he couldn’t imagine her as the nurturing type but that a past as a wartime ambulance driver would certainly explain her reckless driving in civilian life… but the remark never came. Instead, he let out a long, noiseless sigh. An enormous amount of tension seemed to leave his body, and he nuzzled her hand for a second or two. “No wonder I can talk to you, Phryne,” he said, huskily.

She stroked the pad of her thumb gently over his cheekbone, and felt tears.

The muscles of his jaw and throat trembled beneath her hand, working hard to contain the emotions that he had kept bottled up for so long, but the tears came freely, without a sound, and when he spoke again, his voice was soft, and nearly calm. “Your being in the war… do you know, it never occurred to me? I knew about your upbringing, of course, and some of the dodgier things you got up to when you were younger, but in spite of that, I can’t help thinking of you having always been… you. The way you are now. And people like that didn’t _do_ that kind of war service. They worked in offices, they organized charitable events. They didn’t go to work in the blood and the mud and…” He cut off sharply. “And all of it.”

“For what it’s worth, Jack, I have a great deal of trouble imagining you as a carefree young constable.” Phryne slid off the bed, coming to rest on her knees, so that she could press her forehead to his. “We’re neither of us the people we once were. And in some ways, I’m grateful for that.”

His lips twitched. “Because otherwise we wouldn’t have met?”

“Well, that. And because in retrospect, I didn’t like the person I was very much. I much prefer the person I’ve become.”

Jack’s smile deepened. “So do I, Miss Fisher.” He took her hand from his face and held it. “I saw your face, earlier tonight, as you were leaving the station.”

“Rosie needed you. And I thought…”

“Yes, I know what you thought. You can stop thinking it.”

“She still respects you, and cares for you very much, Jack.” Phryne debated telling him what Rosie had said, and what Aunt Prudence had said, and decided against it, for the moment. “She still loves you, I think.”

“Love,” said Jack huskily, “was never the problem. I wanted her to be happy, and she wasn’t going to be happy married to me. That’s why I didn’t contest the divorce. But this hasn’t changed anything.”

Phryne chewed thoughtfully on her lower lip. “She’s jealous of me,” she murmured, tucking her hair behind her ear, as was her wont when she was thoughtful. “She’s so protective of you… she still thinks of you as hers.” _And I was ready to give you up. And after all the work I’ve done trying to lure you into my arms. Very magnanimous of me, I think._

Jack looked at her in solemn silence. Then, after an indeterminate time, he slowly shook his head. “If she asked me to come back to her now—“

“Did she, Jack?”

“No. She did ask me to stay at the house… but I couldn’t. I couldn’t leave her alone after Sanderson was taken away, but once she was calm and settled at home… By her side is not where I belong anymore. The man she married died a long time ago.”

Phryne touched his face, more playfully, this time. “For a ghost, you’re a terribly solid man, Jack Robinson.”

He smiled at that, but his gaze was far, far away. “‘Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory holds a seat in this distracted globe…’”

“…Really, Jack? Hamlet?” He blinked and looked perplexed at her. Phryne smirked. “A dour Danish prince is hardly appropriate for a romantic tryst.”

“Is _that_ what we’re having? I thought we were a couple of old soldiers, bemoaning the world.”

“If you want reminiscences of that sort, I suggest you visit the Old Soldiers’ Home.”

He turned and thrilled her with a brush of his lips across her palm. His voice, already low, dropped in register again and went husky. “All right, then… ‘Doubt that the stars are fire, doubt that the sun doth move his aides, doubt truth to be a liar, but never doubt I…”

Phryne held her breath. They both knew the quotation, how it finished. He had said as much to her once before, after the awful case where he had mistakenly thought her killed in an automobile crash. But he had never dared to say the word, and Phryne wasn’t sure how she would react, when he did say it.

He trailed off, his eyes unreadable. Then, he said, simply, “Thank you, Miss Fisher. I’m all right now.”

“Would you like to stay with me tonight?” she heard herself ask, with a hint of longing. She smoothed her hands down his lapels and studied the way her fingers curled into the fabric. 

The low sigh that escaped Jack’s lips said that he would very much like to stay. But the hands that gently detached hers from his jacket told not of desires, but of realities. “Not tonight.”

She looked at him from behind her eyelashes. “Another night, then, Inspector?”

There was no plainer way for her to make an overture. None, at least, that he would accept. Jack tipped his head to one side, considering. “Perhaps.” He rose from the dressing table chair, bringing Phryne to a standing position with him. Reluctantly, on both their parts, they stepped back, and Jack resumed his hat and coat. In a moment, as noiselessly as he’d slipped into her boudoir, he was back on the balcony.

His eyes skimmed over her thoughtfully. But all he said was, “Good night, Miss Fisher.”


End file.
